E 207 K -1^ e 

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*' Posterity delights in details " — John ^ Adams 



THE LIFE AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES 



OF 



JOHN NUTTING 

CAMBRIDGE LOYALIST 



AND HIS STRANGE CONNECTION WITH 

The Penobscot Expedition of 1779 



BY 



SAMUEL FRANCIS BATCHELDER 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of 
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



Cambridge, Massachusetts 
191Z 



Ezor 



Gifiii 
Author 

)UN 16 1813 



ADVENTURES OP JOHN NUTTING, CAMBRIDGE 

LOYALIST 




[From his Memorial to Lord George Germain, 1777.] 

To paraphrase Cowper, hymning the surprising adventures of an- 
other John ; 

John Nutting was a carpenter 

Of credit and renown. 
A train-band captain eke was he 
Of famous Cambridge town. 

His father was James the locksmith, of humble but respectable 
pedigree, — so humble that only his wife's first name, Mercy, is 
recorded.! Young John was born 14 January, 1739, Old Style.^ 
Within the week he was baptized,^ after the prompt. Godfearing 
fashion of his. day, and named for his uncle, the aristocrat of the 
family, who held the double distinction of a Harvard degree and 
the CoUectorship at Salem. 

Six years later his father died,* and the lad, on reaching suitable 
age, was apprenticed to John Walton,^ housewright, of Reading. 
This worthy was destined to play an important part in his career, 

^ Cf. L. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, 616, etc. 

^ From data collected by John's grandson, the late Charles Martyr Nutting, 
K.C., of Halifax, most kindly placed at my disposal by his nephew, Henry 
Haliburton Robinson, Esq., of London. Hereinafter referred to as Nutting 
Papers. 

" 21 January, 1739. Register of First Parish, Cambridge. 

* Administration granted to the widow 27 Jan. 1745-6, with an allowance for 
the three youngest (sic) children " one of which was sickly." Middlesex Pro- 
bate Records, No. 16138. It seems impossible to suppose John was the invalid. 

5 96 Massachusetts Archives (Muster Rolls), 420. 



66 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

at least in that portion of it connected with Cambridge. He is 
often called Captain Walton,^ and we may surmise that it was 
through his influence that his apprentice, when only seventeen, 
marched from Cambridge in Captain Fuller's company of Colonel 
William Brattle's regiment " on the alarm for the relief of Fort 
William Henry." ^ He served but two weeks on that expedition, 
getting no farther than Springfield, where the news of the final 
disaster to the ill-fated garrison probably reached his command. 

The next year he enlisted ^ under Captain Aaron Fay in " a com- 
pany of foot in His Majesty's service," forming a part of Colonel 
Ebenezer Nichols's regiment raised by Massachusetts " for the re- 
duction of Canada." This time he saw real service, and on a pretty 
considerable scale. Nichols's regiment formed part of the compos- 
ite force of over fifteen thousand men, regulars and militia, that 
gathered that summer on the shores of Lake George, and under 
the inefiicient Abercrombie made a bootless attack on Montcalm, 
entrenched at Ticonderoga. Young Jack must have had his fill of 
wilderness-marching, lake-paddling, and stockade-building; and 
perhaps of fighting as well, for on at least one occasion his regiment 
was severely cut up.* He maj have seen and must have lamented 
the untimely death of young Lord Howe, who, though nominally 
second in command, was the life and soul of the expedition. 

These early seeds of martial experience evidently fell on good 
ground. Nutting's aptitude for military life, especially of the mi- 
litia variety, as well as the early development of his powers of 
command, organization, persuasion, and camaraderie, so essential to 
promotion therein, may be inferred from the fact that ere the Rev- 
olution he had been elected " acting lieutenant " of the Cambridge 
company, — doubtless in place of Lieutenant Samuel Thatcher, 
who on the reorganization of the militia shortly before the outbreak 
of active hostilities had been promoted Captain, vice Thomas Gard- 

* In 1775, when he had moved to Cambridge, he was first lieutenant in the 
local company, with his brother for second. L. R. Paige, History of Cam. 
bridge, 408. 

^ 95 Massachusetts Archives (Muster Rolls), 377. 

8 2 May, 1758. 96 Massachusetts Archives (Muster Rolls), 420. Nichols was 
a Reading man. L. Eaton, Genealogical History of Reading, 98, 

* Cf. R. Rogers, Journal, 121. J. Cleavelaud, Journal; xii. Essex Institute 
Historical Collections, 190; etc. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 57 

ner.i In this position his influence was certainly sufficient to make 
his leadership sought by both sides in the struggle,^ as we shall 
see. 

Perhaps it is not too fanciful to picture the young militiaman 
returning in November from his first campaign, with the irresist- 
ible air of all true sons of Mars, making conquest then and there 
of the heart of his master's daughter, Mary WaltoA^At all events 
we find him three years later, just out of his indentures and entitled 
to call himself housewright on his own account, preparing a home 
for his bride in Cambridge. On November 7, 1761, he bought of 
William Bordman for £16 lawful money a little lot of a quarter 
of an acre (about where the Epworth Church now stands) " on 
the highway or Common as far as the land belonging to the Heirs 
of Mr. Johnathan Hastings dec'^ " and in front of " the Tan Yard," 
with <' half the well." ^ Here he built a modest house " two story 
high, three rooms on a floor" — "a good house," as one of his 
boarders testified later,* and it is something for a boarder to say that. 
Here the young couple established themselves, and here, 26 April, 
1762,5 was born their first child, a daughter, baptized^ Mary for 
her mother; her father, as was customary (if not already done), 
" owning the covenant " the same day in Dr. Appleton's meeting. 
The next June he bought an additional strip of knd from Bord- 
man for £6 lawful.7 

The extant records of his next few years are mainly concerned 
with the good old-fashioned steady increases to the family, till half 
a dozen babies were tumbling about the little house opposite the com- 
mon. John Junior was born 3 March, 1764 ; ^ Mercy (named from 

^ L. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, 408. 

2 Memorial to the Commissioners on Loyalists' Claims, Heard at Halifax, 
29 December, 1785. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record 
Office, London. 

8 59 Middlesex Deeds, 266. 

* Testimony of Nathaniel Bust before the Commissioners, 29 December, 1785. 
American Loyalists Transcripts, xiii. 303. Public Library, New York City. 

^ Nutting Papers. 

• 9 May, 1762. First Parish Records. 
» 59 Middlesex Deeds, 624. 

8 Nutting Papers. Baptized 11 March, 1764. First Parish Records. Died 
unmarried 30 July, 1822. Nutting Papers. 

^J YYvaJUvLA4 -^^ O-h^ A'^^\ . S^ SMcL^ G^^'vn I CLa^, 1*^40 



68 THE CAMBRIDGE . HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

her paternal grandmother) arrived on Washington's Birthday, 
1766;! Mary No. 2 (No. 1 having died 12 April, 17662) came to 
carry on the name, 1 March, 1768 ; ^ Ehzabcth (another family 
cognomen) opened her eyes on 5 April, 1770 ;* James (named from 
his paternal grandfather) joined the flock on 8 May, 1772;^ and 
Susanna put in an appearance on 28 August, 1773.^ 

Meanwhile our housewright was becoming a man of substance 
and standing. In 1768 he was appointed one of the parish tax- 
collectors, and had the handling of as much as a hundred and sixty 
pound on a single accounting.'^ In his turn he began to take appren- 
tices.^ His father-in-law Walton seems to have put work in his 
way, and certainly stood behind him with financial backing.^ He 
himself described his business as "extensive," both as master- 
builder and in the lumber trade.^'' Among other important jobs, he 
did nearly a hundred and forty pounds' worth of work in build- 
ing Mr. Thomas Ohver's fine house,^^ which under the name of 
" Elm wood " still stands stout and good. 

He also dabbled in maritime interests. A strong streak of 
the sea was in his blood. The family name was well represented 
among the amphibious population of Salem, Marblehead, and Glou- 

1 Nutting Papers. Baptized 3 March, 1766. First Parish Records. Died 
1784. Nutting Papers. 

2 Stone in Cambridge Churchyard. 

8 Nutting Papers. Baptized 6 March, 1768. First Parish Records. Married 
Captain Daniel McNeil of North Carolina, 27 November, 1788, at Halifax, and 
had three children. Died circa 1795. Nutting Papers. 

* Nutting Papers. Baptized 6 May, 1770. First Parish Records. Died be- 
tween 1776 and 1783. See post. 

6 Nutting Papers. Baptized perhaps at Christ Church, for by this date Nut- 
ting had left the First Parish meeting. Died between 1776 and 1783. 

6 Ditto. 

' First Parish Account Book labelled " 1763." 

« When he went to Halifax he took two of them along. Memorial to Ger- 
main, 28 February, 1778. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bimdle 75, Public 
Record Office, London. 

9 71 Middlesex Deeds, 430. 

10 Memorial to the Commissioners. Heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. 
Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

11 " Account of Particulars of the Expences of Thomas Olivers Buildings 
in Cambridge." Bristol, 2 October, 1783. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, 
Bundle 48, Public Record Office, London. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 69 

cester,! and in the earliest records of the American Navy.^ His 
father appears to have been the armorer of the little man-of-war 
Prince of Orange in the early 40's, ^ and at his death left, according 
to the inventory of his estate, " a Sain 100 / -, codline 5 / -." * 
Of his brothers, James was a " marriner " ^ and Samuel a surgeon 
aboard the Independence and the Rhodes throughout the Revolu- 
tion.^ His brother Jonathan was captured in the brig Ruhy by 
the British and confined in the prison-ship at St. Lucia ; but swam 
by night with ten companions to a vessel a mile off, overpowered 
her crew, and sailed away to f reedom.^ Two of his nephews, master 
and mate, found a sailor's grave in the loss of the Hercules? He 
himself was paid " 14/ - for boating Mr. Serjeant's goods to Cam- 
bridge " ^ when that gentleman arrived as the new rector of Christ 
Church in the summer of 1767. He was so familiar with the Bay 
of Fundy and the coast of Maine that he was able a few years later 
to act as pilot to one of the British expeditions therealong (of which 
more anon). This familiarity was evidently acquired on coasting- 
trips to secure his supplies of lumber, which, odd as it may sound, 
was then almost entirely brought to Boston from the shores of 
Maine.i<> 

It was on these trips that he became interested in acquiring 
lands " to the Eastward," as the phrase then went — perhaps by 

* J. K. Nutting, Nutting Genealogy, passim. 

2 Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, xi. passim. 
' Massachusetts Archives (Muster Rolls), passim. 

* Middlesex Probate Records, No. 16138. 
5 Middlesex Probate Records, No. 16140. 

* Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, xi. passim. 
' C. Eaton, History of Thomaston, i. 149. 

8 Idem. ii. 341. 

* Christ Church Accounts. 

i" At the outbreak of the Revolution he " left Lumber to the Eastward to the 
value of £ 40 lawful Money." Testimony before the Commissioners, 29 De- 
cember, 1785. American Loyalists Transcripts, xiii. 301. Public Library, New 
York City. Moreover, as early as 1750, since " The Fire Wood near Boston is 
much exhausted, we are under a necessity of fetching it from the Province of 
Main, and Territory of SagadaJiock. A Wood Sloop with three Hands makes 
about 15 Voyages per ^nn. from the Eastward to iJos^on, may carry about 80 
Cord Fire Wood each Voyage." W. Douglass, A Summary ... of the British 
Settlements in North America, ii. 68. 



60 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

tlie advice of brother Jonathan, who from 1767 onwards was making 
considerable purchases and sales of real estate in what is now Thom- 
aston, Maine, and the coast adjacent.^ Following his example, 
and little foreseeing the results on his own and indeed on his coun- 
try's history, our John began investing in shore lots, quite in the 
modern manner, just across Penobscot Bay, in what is now Cas- 
tine, and up the Bagaduce River. 

Save for the stragghng clearings of a few of the original grantees,^ 
that region was then an unbroken wilderness, covered to the water's 
edge with those magnificent pines and other evergreens that af^ 
forded an apparently inexhaustible supply of the finest timber, es- 
pecially masts and spars, in a day when masts and spars were a 
very real necessity. John Nutting set to work, either personally or 
by proxy, and in a few years was able to inventory his estates as : 

"Two Houses to the Eastward of the Province of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay £ 80 " — 

Two hundred acres & upwards of good Land in one of the 
most eligible situations in Penobscot purchased of the grantee ' 
who possessed the same upwards of 20 years, more than 30 
Acres of which is well cleared and under Improvement, the rest 
Wooded & Estimated at the least computation at 1000 — 

One third part of a Saw Mill adjoining s^ Land at Penobscot 70 — 

A Farm partly cleared & Improved by myself on Bagwiduce 
River, 500 Acres 100 — " < 

He spent a good deal of money on this property and got con- 
siderable returns from it. In 1769 he had on one account with a 
brother housewright, Nathaniel Kidder of Medford, who was appar- 

^ Wiscasset Deeds, passim. 

2 See full lists in 117 Massachusetts Archives, and 24 "Court Records" 
(March, 1762). 

* Apparently named Busy. Testimony of "Josiah Henny, late of Penob- 
scot" before the Commissioners 29 December, 1785. xiii. American Loyalists 
Transcripts, 302. Public Library, New York City. The printed copies, gen- 
erally more accurate, give the name Bary. A. Fraser, Second Report, Bureau 
of Archives, Ontario, 59. Neither form has been otherwise identified. 

* A composite of two schedules, one dated Halifax, 15 January, 1784, the 
other undated, but heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. Both in Audit 
Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 61 

ently acting as his agent, no less than .£378 lawful money, includ- 
ing many cash payments, the " fraight " on forty bushels of corn, 
thirty-one barrels, etc.^ 

But the year 1770 marks a sudden check in John Nutting's pros- 
perous financial career, and somehow puts him in a hole from which 
he never completely extricated himself. He had been borrowing 
small sums from his father-in-law for a good while, and now had to 
mortgage his Cambridge property to him for X93.2 Some of his 
Penobscot lands he had taken for bad debts,^ and there may have 
been other sums owing to him not so well secured. At any rate he 
could not raise ready cash to meet his local creditors, and their 
suits when once begun came thick and fast.* Nathaniel Coolidge 
of Watertown brought suit against him in that year for lumber 
sold. In February, 1771, Kidder sued him for the " cash expended 
to the Eastward." In May the executor of Francis Dizer, '* marriner " 
of Charlestown, sued him for promissory notes, probably on the 
same subject. In July Abijah Steadman, housewright, sued him 
on another note. In August John Smith, " taylor," sued him for 
eight pair of breeches, sundry lambskins and buttons. (The 
babies were evidently growing up.) In September Nathaniel Pren- 
tice, chaisemaker, sued him on an agreement which is so charac- 
teristic of the business methods of that day that it may stand 
repetition : 

" for that whereas the pi* on ye fourth Day of January last, at Cam- 
bridge af ores^ had agreed with & promised ye s^ John to make & deliver 
to him, on or before the twenty fifth Day of April then next, another 
good Chaise such an one as ye pi* had before that time made for one 
Francis Moore, ye s^ John in confideration thereof then & there prom- 
ised ye pi* to build for ye plaintiff a good Frame for a Barn of thirty 
Feet fquare, fourteen feet posts, oak sills, to be to the Acceptance of 

1 Kidder v. Nutting, Middlesex Inferiour Court of Common Pleas, 1771. Ori- 
ginal Files. In 1786 the charge for a passenger from Boston to Penobscot was 
6 s. i. Bangor Historical Magazine, 58. 

2 71 Middlesex Deeds, 430. 

8 Testimony of Lieutenant John Nutting before the Commissioners, Hal- 
ifax, 29 December, 1785. xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 303. Public 
Library, New York City. 

* See original files of Middlesex Inferiour Court of Common Pleas. Clerk's 
Office, East Cambridge. 



62 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

one Samy Choate & one John Walton & to be delivered at ye House 
of Joseph Miller of Charlestown on or before ye said twenty fifth of 
April, at ye price of Eleven pounds fix shillings & Eight pence ; and 
also to procure for ye pH another Frame twenty four feet in Length & 
twenty feet in Breadth with Oak Sills & fourteen feet posts, to be de- 
livered at s^ prentice's Dwelling House in s^ Cambridge, on or before 
ye fifteenth Day of June then next at the price of Eight pounds & to be 
to the Acceptance of the s4 Choat and Walton, yet s^ Nutting has never 
delivered the last mentioned frame, nor ever paid the £6. 13.4 . . ." 

[Account annexed.] 

*' To a New Riding Chaise £22. 0.0 

Cr. By a Barn Frame £12 By a pair of Chaise 

Wheels £3.6.8. 15. 6.8 

Ball'a due to N. prentice 6.13.4" 

Nutting was evidently at his wits' end to raise money. He ne- 
gotiated a second mortgage on his Cambridge property to his father- 
in-law, for £53.1 jje took at least one boarder.^ Some of the suits 
he defaulted, others he contested on technicalities, and appealed, 
but did not prosecute the appeal. Occasionally he kept out of sight 
altogether, perhaps at Penobscot. In all the suits he lost his case. 
The amounts were generally trifling, and were probably settled by 
work at his trade. Kidder, whose claim was much the largest, 
actually proceeded to levy on Nutting's remaining interest in his 
twice-mortgaged house and lot, apparently conceded to be one-half : 
" containing a cellar measuring nine f ott and four inches . . . the west 
end of the house containing a Lower Room partly finished a Cham- 
ber also a Bed-Chamber North of the Stairs unfinished also half the 
whole Garret unfinished with the one half of the Entry Ways and 
Stair Ways in the whole of the House." ^ Prentice, in an attempt 
to find some property that could be come at by the time he began 
suit, attached Nutting's pew in the meeting-house : " One of the 
body Pews, the frunt pasfing [?] to Henry Prentice the back part to 

1 72 Middlesex Deeds, 104. 

8 Mr. Nathaniel Rust. See his testimony before the Commissioners, supra, 
p. 57, note. Also his affidavit " that he resided at Cambridge many years pre- 
ceding the late War." Halifax, 15 January, 1784. Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

» 73 Middlesex Deeds, 279. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 63 

Owen Worlen the two Ends on two allyes." ^ From this time the 
unfortunate Nutting seems to have been an unchurched wanderer 
till he began attending Christ Church, just across the Common from 
his house. No doubt he already found his sympathies more with 
the Tory proprietors there than with the congregation in the meet- 
ing-house, with so many of whom he must have been by this time 
on bad terms. Even there he soon got into debt to the church- 
wardens, but in 1774 he was formally voted the rather unusual 
privilege of renting a pew, at 24/ - per annum.2 

And now we come to that memorable Thursday, the first of Sep- 
tember, 1774, when the Revolution very nearly began at daybreak on 
Cambridge Common, and when John Nutting definitely cast in his 
lot with the supporters of law and order and the King's govern- 
ment. In his own words, " receiving an Intimation from Colonel 
Phipps (Sheriff of the County) of General Gage's intention to re- 
move the Magazine of Powder deposited at that place to Boston ; 
and sohciting the assistance of your Memorialist, he readily as- 
sisted; notwithstanding he had been previously importuned by 
a Mob to head them and prevent the Removal of it.^ . . . which 
altogether with his open Avowal of principles of Loyalty, raised 
the resentment of the populace against him to such a Degree as 
obliged him to quit his House & Family, & take refuge in Boston, 
under the protection of the Kings Troops."* 

In Boston, whither his family soon followed him, he found him- 
self in mighty genteel company,^ many of his richest and most prom- 
inent fellow townsmen having also made it convenient to get in 
closer touch with the authorities at about the same time or even 

1 Prexntice r. Nutting. Original Files, ubi supra. 

2 Christ Church Records. 

8 Memorial to the Commissioners. Heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. 
Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. Cf. 
his^ testimony before the Commissioners : " . . . altho' the Mob desired and 
insisted that as an Officer of Militia he should prevent the Ordnance from being 
removed." xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 297. PubUc Library, New 
York City. 

* Memorial to Germain, " Read 22 Dec! 77." Audit Office, Loyalist Series 
Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. ' 

6 " We have here Earls, Lords & Baronets, I assure you Names that sound 
Grand." Letter of Samuel Paine, Boston, Oct. 2-9, 1775. xxx. New England 
Historical and Genealogical Register, 371. 



64 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

earlier. From this point in his career indeed may be traced the 
beginnings of a knack of obtaining the friendship and confidence of 
the nobility and gentry that later developed to surprising propor- 
tions. To his credit it must be added that those friendships never 
seem to have been unmerited nor that confidence misplaced. Un- 
like so many of his fellow-Tories, whose firm adherence to the 
Crown was mainly evidenced by a prodigious capacity for running 
away, his own loyalty, as events soon proved, was of an extremely 
practical kind. 

Boston was full of the King's troops, and more were arriving 
at short intervals. In the chiU nights of the early autumn their 
tents were already becoming uncomfortable, and the need of sub- 
stantial housing for them soon became imperative. The authorities 
prudently forbore to billet the unwelcome visitors upon the town, 
and decided to build special barracks for them. ^ 

The announcement of this design fell upon most unwilling ears. 
The dullest Bostonian could perceive that the erection of perma- 
nent barracks in his beloved and almost autonymous metropolis 
meant its degradation to the level of a mere garrison town. More- 
over it was bruited on good authority that even if the present un- 
happy differences should be composed a garrison at Boston was to 
be maintained indefinitely, as a check on any possible future upris- 
ings. The building of barracks immediately assumed the propor- 
tions of a grievance, adding one more to the already too plentiful 
stock of those commodities upon which the spirit of rebeUion 
throve. Attempts therefore to begin the work were met with a 
most effective passive resistance of the local mechanics. A trial of 
the regimental carpenters under the chief engineer Montrdsor 
proved such a failure that Gage took measures to secure workmen 
from New York. " It 's my opinion," remarked the observant Mr. 
John Andrews in his diary, " if they are wise, they won't come." 
And as a matter of fact they did n't, but snug on Manhattan Island 
contented themselves with passing the usual patriotic resolutions.^ 

^ The printed accounts of the following episode are mainly to be found in 
i. P. Force, American Archives, 4th series, 802-821, and J. Andrews, Diary, 
viii. Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 300. See also " Letters of 
Hugh Earl Percy," who was in direct charge of the camp. 

2 Some came later, and a pretty set they were. A few days before the evac- 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 65 

Whereupon, "in consequence of the favorable representations 
of Lieutenant Governor Oliver and Gen. Gage's earnest sollici- 
tations," John Nutting came forward and stoutly undertook the 
unpopular post of master-carpenter, "being," as he afterwards 
boasted, "the first person of an American that entered into the 
King's service when the troubles began." His executive capacity 
was astonishing. In the midst of the general disaffection, by hook 
or crook he managed to secure some forty or fifty men,i and the 
barrack frames began to rise both on the Common and at the Neck. 
The sight was too much for the Selectmen. If they could not 
traverse the orders of the Governor, they could adopt indirect 
methods, and on September 24 they significantly resolved " that 
should the mechanicks or other inhabitants of this town assist the 
troops by furnishing them with artificers labourers or materials of 
any kind to build barracks or other places of accommodation for 
the troops, they will probably incur the displeasure of their 
brethren, who may withhold their contributions for the relief of 
the town, and deem them as enemies to the rights and liberties 
of America.'' 

Gage saw the trick, and immediately sent for the Selectmen, 
"seemed a great deal worried," and with plentiful profanity rep- 
resented that the work must go on, as the regiments had to be 
lodged somewhere. The wily Selectmen replied that for their 
own part they should actually prefer to see the soldiers kept to- 
gether in barracks under discipline rather than scattered irrespon- 
sibly about the town, but that they had to consider the attitude of 
the surrounding places. In truth this was extremely threatening. 
"If they are suffered to proceed," observed Mr. Andrews, as to the 
imported laborers, " the matter is settled with us, for it is with the 
greatest difficulty that the country are restrained from coming in 

uation one of the Selectmen wrote: " The Inhabitants in the utmost distress, thro' 
fear of the Town being destroyed by the Soldiers, a party of, New York Carpen- 
ters with axes going thro' the town breaking open houses, &c. Soldiers and 
sailors plundering of houses, shops, warehouses." Ne well's Journal, i. Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th series, 274. 

1 Memorial to Germain, " Read 22 Dec^ 77." Audit Office, Loyalist Series, 
Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. He later explained that he got them 
"from the Country." Testimony before Commissioners, Halifax, 2!) Dec. 1785. 
xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 297. Public Library, New York City. 



66 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

even now." The Governor next interviewed "King" Hancock, 
begging him to get the vote reconsidered ; but in vain, and on the 
26th, " at four o'clock the workmen all pack'd up their tools and 
left the barracks, frames, &ca." The next day a combined meeting 
of the committees of all the neighboring towns voted not to supply 
the army with lumber, bricks, labor, or in short anything but those 
provisions " which mere humanity requires." 

Affairs were now apparently at a stand. But the master-builder 
was a man of resource. The ship-carpenters from the fleet were 
pressed into service, while, acting no doubt on Nutting's knowledge 
of affairs " to the Eastward," an armed schooner was despatched 
to Halifax " for all the Artificers they can procure from there." 
Still the difficulties of the job were not over. On land the ship- 
carpenters proved in truth out of their element, "being very igno- 
rant of the method of framing and indeed of any sort of work they 
wanted done," and had to be dismissed. Wages then unheard of 
were offered for a day's work — two dollars, three dollars, " or even 
any price at all" — but not a workman came forward.^ Lumber 
soon became so scarce that it was hard to find boards enough to 
make even a coffin for the dead, to say nothing of a habitation for 
the living. A shipload of planks intended for Boston was seized 
by the rebels at Portsmouth, and got no farther. An old brick 
house at Point Shirley was torn down and turned into ill-con- 
structed barrack chimneys. The troops were almost in mutiny for 
lack of their promised accommodations, and several regiments had to 
remain aboard the transports they arrived in, made fast along the 
wharves. Somehow Nutting struggled on with the work till about 
the middle of October,^ when a party of carpenters arrived from 
Portsmouth (probably secured "at the Eastward"), and the idle 
and hungry Boston workmen had their first sight of " scabs " on 
high wages taking the bread out of their mouths. This was the 
last straw, and the usual recourse of all strikers followed. Nutting 

1 Montresor, the Chief Engineer, reported that in his department on October 1 
" an addition was thought absolutely necessary of 1 master carpenter, 1 fore- 
man carpenter, 20 carpenters," etc. xi. J. Almon, Parliamentary Register, 279. 

2 Captain Evelyn notices the occurrence briefly in a letter dated 31 October, 
1774. He adds that the man was by way of being hanged. Letters of Captain 
W. G. Evelyn, 39. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 67 

was waylaid at night — but he shall tell the story in his own words, 
as found in his subsequent memorial to the Commissioners on 
Loyalists' Claims: 

" Several members of the Rebel Committee called on him and used 
every perswasion and promised every advantage to induce him to quit the 
King's Works; but after finding their Entreaties without efifect they 
proceeded to Violence; a Mob the next day having concealed them- 
selves, seized on your Memorialist on his "Way from thence to his Lodg- 
ings in Boston and after almost killing him put him on board a Boat 
under charge of Four men with directions to convey him to Cambridge 
to be examined by the Committee then sitting there ; but, fortunately 
for your Memorialist, thro' perswasion and a small consideration they 
were prevailed on to set him at Liberty near Cambridge from whence 
he returned to his Duty at the Lines; in passing from whence to his 
Lodgings or otherways. General Gage was pleased in future to furnish 
him with a Party of Men to protect him from the Insults of the 
Inhabitants." ^ 

In some fashion therefore the barracks were finished, at least "at 
the lines," — those on the Common seem to have been given up, — 
and by November 16 they were occupied ; none too soon, for the num- 
ber of fatal cases of illness from exposure was already considerable. 
Nutting's work however continued. There was much to be done, 
not only on the fortifications under Montr^sor, of the Engineers, 
but on gun-carriages, ammunition-wagons, etc. under Colonel 
Cleaveland of the Royal Artillery,^ and perhaps on the long- 
suffering lighthouse, which was at last repaired and relit in Decem- 
ber of 1775.3 Press of business might well have been his excuse, if 
a polite one were needed, for his continued absence from home. 
By an odd retaliation in kind, his much encumbered house, or, as 
it was elegantly termed, " Seat in Cambridge in the Spring of the 
Year 1775 . . . was made a Barrack for the american Souldiers and 

^ Memorial to the Commissioners, heard 29 December, 1785, at Halifax. 
Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

2 See his certificate, London, 7 June, 1778. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, 
Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

8 23 December, 1775. Howe to Dartmouth, xi. J. Almon, Parliamentary 
Register, 271. At least one party of carpenters at work there was kidnapped 
by the provincials, but Nutting evidently was not included. 



68 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

mucli Damaged thereby."^ It was later taken possession of by bis 
ex-master, backer, father-in-law and mortgagee ^ John Walton, on a 
quite excusable " Idea that Mr. Nutting's Family have cost him 
that much." ^ 

Our loyal carpenter continued actively employed in Boston until 
within about six weeks of the evacuation. Then under orders from 
Captain Spry he removed, with his wife, six children, two 'prentices, 
and " about fourteen artificers " to Halifax, leaving, as it proved, 
his native heath forever, — leaving too a memory that rankled in 
the patriotic breast for many a long day. Small wonder that in 
the Proscription Act of October, 1778, he is one of the few Cam- 
bridge men specifically enumerated as having " left this state . . . 
and joined the enemies thereof . . . manifesting an inimical dis- 
position . . . and a design to aid and abet the enemies thereof 
in their wicked purposes." * 

His work at Halifax through that heart-breaking spring of 1776 
can be easily imagined. If ever a housewright was needed, it was 
then and there. We are all familiar with the picture — the miser- 
able little fishing village, with a proportion of foul dram-shops 
before which the typical western mining town seems a Shaker set- 
tlement,^ completely overwhelmed by the multitude of gently- 
nurtured refugees, whole families seated crying on the surf-beaten 
rocks without so much as a tent over their heads, lacking food, 
fuel, and above all shelter.^ If it was not Nutting's idea it was at 
least characteristic of him to have devised the expedient of getting 

1 Affidavits of John Walton, Cambridge, and Renjamin Walton, Reading. 
29 October, 1788. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Of- 
fice, London. 

'^ And apparently also his successor as lieutenant of the Cambridge company. 
L. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, 408. 

* Claimant's testimony before the Commissioners. Halifax, 29 December, 
1785. xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 300. Public Library, New York 
City. With characteristic assurance Nutting some years later demanded com- 
pensation for his Cambridge property to the tune of £735. See schedules men- 
tioned on page 94. 

4 Province Laws, 1778-1779, 2nd Session, chapter 24. 

6 One of the inhabitants wrote in 1760 : " The business of one half the town 
is to sell rum, and the other half to drink it." ii. T. C. Haliburton, History 
of Nova Scotia, 13. 

' Abigail Adams to John Adams, 21 April, 1776. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 69 

ashore the cabooses and deck-houses of the transports and convert- 
ing them into whole streets of httle huts.^ We can fancy how 
vigorously he must have pushed forward the work. Cabins, sheds, 
camps, anything that the limited supply of lumber allowed, had to 
be run up as fast as possible, ruined cottages repaired and made 
tenantable, the dazed and drunken fishermen driven to work, the 
inefficient shipwrights from the fleet made the most of, something 
provided in the way of wharves and landing facilities, store-sheds, 
more barracks again, and what not. 

The fortifications of the town too were in a perilous state. Al- 
though Halifax had already been termed " the northern key of His 
Majesty's American dominions " ^ and a royal dockyard established 
there, yet the defences had been allowed to go to rack and ruin ; 
batteries were dismantled, gun-carriages decayed and guns on the 
ground. In fact the town lay practically " open to the country on 
every side." ^ At last the sudden military importance of the station 
and the persistent and disquieting rumors of an attack upon it* 
moved the home government to decided action, and the army esti- 
mates for 1776 contemplated an expenditure of nearly £1500 sterling 
on constructions and repairs there.^ It was not an easy matter to get 
the work done. In that scattered and unskilled community, where 
a few years before two distillers, two hatters and a sugar-baker made 
up the entire manufacturing class,^ it was next to impossible to ob- 
tain either materials or workmen. Again, however. Nutting ap- 

1 E. P. Weaver, " Nova Scotia during the Revolution," x. American His- 
torical Review, 67. 

2 Campbell to Hillsborough, 13 January, 1769 ; 43 Provincial Archives, No. 
67.- Halifax. 

* Legge to Dartmouth, 19 August, 1775 ; 44 Provincial Archives, 76. Halifax. 

* E. P. Weaver, " Nova Scotia during the Revolution," x. American His- 
torical Review, 65. 

^ The items were divided among the " Square Store for Small Arms, the Long 
Store for Small Arms, Bedding Store, Laboratory, Ordinance Yard, Gun Tack- 
ling Store, Junk Store, Lumber Yard, Artillery Barracks, Armourer's Shop, 
Governor's Battery, South Gate Battery, South Five Gun Battery, North Five 
Gun Battery, and Inclosing Land reserved for his Majesty on the hill." vi. J. 
Almon, Parliamentary Register, 141. Judging by later plans of the city, not 
much of this work was actually accomplished. 

* Francklin to Hillsborough, 11 July, 1768. J. Brymuer, " Report on 
Canadian Archives, 1894," 287. 



70 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

pears to have done wonders, and among other feats to have built by 
August no less than ten large block-houses, each mounting sixteen 
guns.i We may safely assume that he earned his pay at Halifax 
"as Master Carpenter and Superintendant of Mechanics," "serv- 
ing," as one of the officers present put it, " with Active Spirit and 
uncommon Loyalty." ^ 

Moreover he soon found other methods of displaying these quali- 
ties. The year 1777 saw the most elaborate preparations which 
Great Britain took to suppress the rebellion. The great movement 
to isolate New England was not properly worked out in detail, but 
it did include some appreciation of the importance of diverting the 
attention of the revolutionists by demonstrations along the coast- 
line, while the main columns operated inland. To the originators 
of the campaign " it was always clear in speculation that the Militia 
would never stay with Washington or quit their homes if the coast 
was kept in alarm." ® Moreover it was necessary to clear the shores 
of the swarm of small privateers that infested the Gulf of Maine and 
played havoc with the Nova Scotia settlements and the communi- 
cation between Halifax and New York.* Besides, there were 
rumors of a secret expedition fitting out at Boston in June, to 
attack the British fort at the mouth of the St. Jolin's in the Bay of 
Fundy.^ From Halifax, therefore, an expedition was arranged " to 
Saint John's River to meet the garrison of Fort Cumberland and 
to proceed to Machias and destroy that nest of pirates, and after- 
wards to go to the east coast of New England towards Gouldsbury, 
to cause an alarm in favor of General Burgojme," ^ The fleet oper- 
ations were entrusted to Admiral Collier, and the troops were put 
under the command of John Small, the efficient organizer of the 
newly raised corps of Royal Highland Immigrants. For this expe- 

1 iv. J. Almon, The Remembrancer, 139. 

2 Certificate of Major John Small, 8 March, 1778. Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

8 Knox to Germain, 31 October, 1778 ; vi. Historical Manuscript Commission 
Reports, Various, 153. 

* Cf. iv. J. Almon, The Remembrancer, 139. E. P. Weaver, " Nova Scotia 
During the Revolution." x. American Historical Review, 69, etc. 

^ F. Kidder. Military Operations in Eastern Maine, 185. 

* Massey to Howe, 26 November, 1777 ; i. Historical Manuscripts Commis- 
sion Reports, American Manuscripts, 156. , 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 71 

dition John Nutting's familiarity with the coast was of evident 
value, and, according to Small, he " did very chearf ully and without 
any reward offer his Service as a Pilot or in any other way he 
could be of use for the Publick Service then carrying on ; " and 
although " there was no pay allowed him on that Occasion," 
showed himself " a deserving good Subject, still ready & willing 
to exert himself as Such." ^ 

Through no fault of his, however, the enterprise miscarried. The. 
transports reached their destination with no errors in pilotage that 
we know of ; but, in the words of the disgusted General Massey, 
commanding at Halifax, " after the Lieut. Governor and I had 
fix'd every appointment with good Guides at a great Expense for a 
Grand Stroke and while Major Small was prancing at St. John's 
River, the place of Rendezvous for the Troops from Cumber- 
land and Windsor Sir George Collier stole out of Halifax, made 
a futile Attack at Machias, was most shamefully drove from thence 
. . . which prevented the Eastern Coast of New England from 
being Alar3i'd which was my orders to Major Small, and which if 
they had been executed might have prevented the Misfortunes 
that attend'd It. Genl. Burgoynes army, for it was at that critical 
time." 2 The jealous and self-sufficient Collier, after some gascon- 
ading up and down the coast, retired to St. John's in September, 
where in October the expedition disintegrated without accomplish- 
ing a single one of its objects. 

Explanations to the home government were certainly needed, 
and whether Nutting was entrusted with them, or sent as a wit- 
ness, or went on his own initiative, is not clear. At all events he 
sailed immediately for Englahd, taking with him his son John, 
now a likely lad nearly oight years old. Arriving in the old il^rvt>t.-|^ew 
country, which must have seemed so new to him, he at once 
sought out his former superiors, the ex-governor and ex-lieutenant- 
governor of Massachusetts, obtained written recommendations from 
them, dated 28 November, 1777, and drew up a memorial to Lord 
George Germain.^ This document, compared with the usual lugu- 

1 See note 2, page 70. 

2 Massey to Howe. Halifax, 15 March, 1778 ; i. Historical Manuscripts 
Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 209. 

3 All to be found in Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 75, Public Record 
Office, London. 



72 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

brious recitals of sufferings and insistent claims for compensation 
for the loss of fat fees or swollen salaries, with which the bulk 
of the loyalists flooded the government, is remarkably refreshing. 
After mentioning his undoubted services he states "That your 
Memorialist has no wish to be supported in Idleness at the Charge 
of Government, but is willing and desirous to be further service- 
able in the way of his Trade; and as Carpenters are wanted at 
New York, & probably in other parts of America, he is come to 
England in Hopes of obtaining such employment, & will be very 
ready to go out imediately, — With this view your Memorialist 
humbly Solicits your Lordships patronage & for further Informa- 
tion respecting his Character, Services & Sufferings he begs leave 
to refer your Lordship to the Eight Honorable Lord Percy to his 
Excellency General Gage, to Lieutenant Governor Oliver, and 
other Officers both Civil and Military to whom the foregoing 
Transactions are well known." 

This memorial was promptly transmitted by William Knox, 
Germain's under-secretary, to John Robinson of the Treasury 
Board, who took equally prompt action upon it. It bears the 
endorsement: "Read 22 Dec. 77 <£50 advance & to be recom- 
mended to the Com'rs at New York." Such a substantial recog- 
nition of a man standing squarely on his own merits, in that 
heyday of influence and favoritism, shows better than any tes- 
timonials what manner of impression Mr. Nutting had already 
made in official circles. 

The fifty pounds was paid, but the recommendation to New 
York must have been somehow overlooked ; for on 28 February, 
1778, Nutting addressed another memorial ^ to Lord George, from 
" 78 Lambs Conduit Street," asking for further assistance, as he 
is still out of employment. This was transmitted by Knox to 
the Treasury Board on March 16, received April 20, and not read 
till July 8 ; it bears the chilly endorsement " Nil." Not waiting 
for this result, with real Yankee persistence. Nutting addressed, 
May 8, a personal letter ^ to Lord North himself, referring to the 
memorial, and proceeding : " I shall only presume to add, I desire 
not to eat the bread of Idleness, being able & willing to be em- 

1 Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

2 Ibid. 



1910.] ADVENTUEES OF JOHN NUTTING 73 

ployed, as formerly, in His Majesty's Service, where my Utility 
& perseverance is well known to the Generals, & Subordinate Of- 
ficers that have served in America during the War — Many of 
whom are now in this Metropohs, & to whom I most gladly would 
Appeal." This direct application to the man "higher up" was 
successful, though not in quite the manner anticipated, and Nut- 
ting received from the Board of Ordnance the appointment of Over- 
seer of His Majesty's works at Landguard Fort.i 

This post, on the outermost verge of the East Anglian coast, 
protecting the harbor of Harwich, the first considerable estuary 
north of the Thames, had long been considered of great impor- 
tance. Just at this period, when war had recently been declared 
with Holland, it was receiving special attention. The marshy 
wastes beside it made an admirable proving ground for big guns, 
as well as an admirable location for a wholesomely impressive dis- 
play of force. Accordingly from 1776 for a number of years ex- 
tensive experiments were conducted there on a great many forms 
of ordnance shipped by water from Woolwich — experiments al- 
most as instructive (though not as dangerous) to the Dutch lug- 
gers hovering off the coast as to the manipulators of untried types 
of the tricky cast-iron cannon of that day. The fort itself was 
neither as strong nor as commodious ^ as its importance warranted. 
During this time it was much enlarged, and also strengthened in 
flank and rear by a very elaborate system of defence works, under 
the direction of Lord Townshend, Master General of the Ordnance.^ 
So extensive were these constructions that two overseers were re- 
quired. Nutting, however, was the chief, receiving <£91.5/- per 
annum, or five shillings a day, while John Jones, his assistant, had 
only £73.* As the additions included a number of new barracks, 
we may well believe that he felt quite in his element. 

Yet he found time to show himself in town occasionally, and to 

1 Memorial to the Commissioners, heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. 
Audit OflBce, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

2 In 1777 its complete establishment was only 87 men, all told. viii. J. Al- 
mon, Parliamentary Register, 185. 

8 J. H. Leslie, History of Landguard Fort, 76 et seq. One of the new re- 
doubts was named the Raynham, after his Norfolk county-seat. 
* xvi. J. Almon, Parliamentary Register, 511. ^ 



y 



74 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

cultivate his acquaintance with Knox. With this active and im- 
portant official he was now on surprisingly intimate terms, whether 
from the favorable representations of others or from sheer native 
ability and address. One likes to think the latter, and to imagine 
the Cambridge carpenter haunting the office of the under-secretary 
with his petitions and memorials until he comes into notice by his 
energetic ways, coupled with that winning and persuasive manner 
that had served him in such good stead one night during the siege 
of Boston, in a boat on the Charles with four angry journeymen. 
At any rate, Nutting actually becomes a figure in the councils of 
the British Empire at one of its greatest crises — an adviser of gen- 
erals and a protege of lords, — un'der the following circumstances : 

Knox had been from the first obsessed with the importance of 
planting a British force on the coast of Maine. Besides its effects * 
in distracting attention, a post there, he argued,^ would give a sta- 
tion for the King's cruisers much nearer than Halifax, would cover 
the Bay of Fundy and Nova Scotia from molestation by sea, would 
prevent any land attack on what later became New Brunswick, and 
would even protect Lower Canada. Furthermore, it would form 
the nucleus and bulwark for a new province,^ towards which might 
be directed the stream of refugees who were leaving the colonies 
and akeady driving the home government to distraction. He had 
even gone so far as to arrange the details for this modern Canaan. 
Lying between New England and " New Scotland," it was to be 
christened New Ireland,^ perhaps in delicate reference to Knox's 
own nationality. Its governor was to be Thomas Hutchinson, its 
chief justice Daniel Leonard, its clerk of the council John Calef, 
the leading local tory, and its bishop (for this colony was to have a 

1 Knox to Cooke, Ealing, 27 January, 1808. vi. Historical Manuscripts 
Commission Reports, Various, 227. 

2 The idea was not new. Even the original settlers were anxious, or were 
represented to be anxious, to have a government of their own, and Bernard 
fomented the proposition. But wiser heads would have none of it. J. Calef, 
Siege of the Penobscot, Postscript, ii. Historical Manuscripts Commission, 
Dartmouth Papers, passim. Franklin to Gushing, London, 7 July, 1773. vi. B. 
Franklin, Writings (ed. Smyth), 80. 

3 This was not the first effort toward the hibernization of Maine. In the 
previous generation Robert Temple had formed a brilliant but unsuccessful plan 
to settle an Irish colony near Bath. L. D. Temple, Some Temple Pedigrees, 6. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 75 

bishop willy-nilly) Dr. Henry Caner, formerly of King's Chapel, 
Boston. This "most preposterous measure," wrote Hutchinson 
from London,! "... is his own scheme, and few people here think 
well of it." Germain was at first among the disbelievers, but Knox 
finally " accomplished what he had been endeavouring " and brought 
his chief round to his opinion. 

Then came the great question : Where should the post be 
located? Falmouth, Long Island, Townsend, Great Deer Island, — 
all were under discussion. Here John Nutting was called into the 
consultation. Mindful of his own " eligible " acres, and doubtless 
recognizing too the natural strength and strategic advantages ^ of 
the place (which events both past and future amply corroborated), 
with a fine mixture of self-interest and loyalty he suggested Pe- 
nobscot. Yankee shrewdness and eloquence prevailed. His Maj- 
esty's ministers fell in with the suggestion,^ and Nutting, "in 
Consequence of pointing out Government (by Mr. Knoxes desire) 
some places that might be taken advantageous to Government was 
on the 30th August, 1778, ordered from Landguard Fort to London 
by express to go out with despatches to America . . . from the 
Right Honorable Lord George Germain's office to Sir Henry Clin- 
ton at New York. " * His special part in the enterprise was, as he 
announced openly at London, " to be employed as overseer of car- 
penters who are to rebuild the Fort at Penobscot," ^ originally 

1 T. Hutchinson, Diary, 19 September, 1778, and 20 October, 1779. Hutch- 
inson's name was soon dropped in this connection. 

2 " The harbor is spacious, accessible, and secure, none in the neighborhood 
can be compared with it. . . . No country could afford greater supply of masts 
and spars for the Royal navy. Nor could any station afford equal convenience 
for annoying in time of war, yea, annihilating the commerce of New England." 
W. Ballard, " Castine, 1815." ii. Bangor Historical Magazine, 45, 

8 The current Boston explanation was that the failure of Massachusetts " to 
supply the eastern people [with food] as they had done during the war " had 
produced a disaffection which the local tories had made the most of in persuad- 
ing the inhabitants generally " to join in a petition to the enemy to come and 
take possession of the place." James Sullivan to John Sullivan; Boston, 30 
Auo-ust, 1779. ii. T. C. Amory, Life of James Sullivan, 376. The explana- 
tion suggests a certain guiltiness in the New England conscience. 

4 Memorial to the Treasury, » Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

6 T. Hutchinson, Diary, 3 September, 1778. 



76 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

erected by the Sieur de Castine, and left in ruins when the French 
abandoned that-district in 1745. ^ 

But in the execution of this ingenious method of protecting his 
cherished property " to the Eastward " an incidental divertissement 
of some magnitude awaited its author. Leaving John Jr. at school 
in London, and receiving his despatches dated at Whitehall 2 Sep- 
tember, 1778,2 he posted down to Falmouth and embarked, with 
X50 worth of "Sea Stock necessary for the Voyage " and "some 
valuable Books on Fortification & Architecture and Instru- 
ments," ^ aboard the Harriet^ one of the government mail packets.* 
A fortnight out, having got no farther than lat. 49° long. 22°, 
they were sighted by the brigantine Vengeance, American pri- 
vateer, Wingate Newman of Newburyport master. He at once 
gave chase.^ The Harriet was a fast sailer, as befitted her employ- 
ment, but the Yankee was a larger ship, specially fitted for her 
business, and brand new to boot. After a six hours' pursuit New- 
man got within range and opened fire. Sampson Sprague, com- 
mander of the packet, replied gallantly, but his little three-pounders 
and crew of forty-five were no match for the six-pounders and 
the hundred men of the privateer. Within pistol-shot the lat- 

1 Cf. G. A. Wheeler, Histoiy of Castine. J. Williamson, History of Maine, etc. 

2 i. Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 
284. 

8 Account annexed to memorial to Treasury, "Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit 
Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

■* This craft had quite a prominent part in the transport and mail service. 
She is frequently mentioned in contemporary documents. 

^ 17 September, 1778. Members of both ships' companies have left accounts 
of this affair. For the American, see Journal of Samuel Nye, Surgeon of the 
Vengeance, E. V. Smith, History of Newburyport, 116: for the English, see 
affidavit of Ab'm Forst, Halifax, 15 January, 1784. Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. I suspect this Forst, like 
Rust, was one of Nutting's loyal apprentices who followed his master's fortunes. 
If we can twist the name into Abraham Frost, we not only have the Cambridge 
man, born 1754, enumerated by L. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, 554-555, 
but also have an explanation why "this fam. prob. rem. as no further trace of 
them is found." For other details of the capture of the Harriet, see i. J. J. 
Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass., 629. London Chronicle, 22-24 Oc- 
tober, 1778 : E. S. Maclay, History of American Privateers, 117. C. H. Lincoln, 
Naval Records of the American Revolution, 113. >- SJjlAj T* k^ yt 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 77 

ter threw in a broadside that obliged the Harriet to strike, having 
one man killed and six wounded. Among the latter was Nutting, 
whom we can well imagine in the very thick of the fight, for he 
was hit " in four places." ^ Nevertheless he managed to sink his de- 
spatches, which he " declared were of great consequence to him," 
as indeed they were. The mails also were thrown overboaid just in 
time. The Harriet's people were taken aboard the Vengeance, 
stripped of their effects, and landed at Corunna,^ the nearest point 
on the Spanish coast, but a most unusual prize port. By an agree- 
ment 3 between the British Consul there and Captain Newman the 
prisoners were exchanged and allowed to pass unmolested to Eng- 
land again. In about six weeks Nutting accordingly arived at Fal- 
mouth once more (fare twelve guineas), having lost X120 worth of 
personal outfit, and being put to an expense of X20 for surgeons, 
nurses and medical attendance, and wended his way by postchaise 
(fare X15) back to London.* It was now too late in the season 
to do anything more about New Ireland. Even Knox, its spon- 
sor, wrote : " Poor Nutting and the Penobscott orders have missed 
their way for this year, and I fear something will happen to pre- 
vent our taking possession of that country in the spring." ^ 

All the same, he determined to have another try at his plan, and 
to have it early and by the same hands. In the beginning of January, 
1779, Mr. Nutting received a fresh set of despatches, and was 
" order'd out again to America the second time before his Wounds 

1 Claimant's evidence before the Commissioners, Halifax, 29 December, 
1785. xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 298. Public Library, New York 
City. 

2 It is a strange freak that makes John Nutting's wanderings intersect the 
military termini of Sir John Moore, who entered active service at Penobscot 
and left it at Corunna. British Plutarch, 243. 

* 1 October, 1778. i. Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American 
Manuscripts, 307. It is a family tradition that Nutting's high rank in Free- 
masonry procured his "escape " from a Spanish prison. W. F. Parker, Life of 
Daniel McNeill Parker, 12. But while this advantage may account for various 
other fortunate turns in his history, it does not need to be invoked here. 

* Account of Expenses annexed to memorial to the Treasury, " Rec'd 13 
Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, 
London. 

6 Knox to Germain. Bath, 31 October, 1778. vi. Historical Manuscripts 
Commission Report, Various, 153-4. 



78 THE CAJMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

were well, experiencing a long and tedious Passage of ffourteen 
Weeks to New Yorls^T)n the Grampus ship of war''^ (this time 
taking a safer conveyance). Clinton had by now got general intima- 
tions of the plan, and some correspondence ^ had passed between 
him and General McLean, the new commander at HaKfax, on the 
subject. McLean was personally ignorant ^ of the shore-line, and 
had been consulting Captain Mowatt, his naval officer. The latter 
recommended taking post at Falmouth, the scene of his most no- 
torious exploit, to which he doubtless longed to give the finishing 
touches. Detailed instructions, however, were brought by Nutting, 
and Clinton, by orders dated 13 April,* directed McLean to proceed 
and fortify a post on Penobscot River, — rather to the disappoint- 
ment of all the officers concerned. 

McLean seems to have put full confidence in the "chearful 
Pilot," and prompt preparations were made. On May 16th the 
detachment was reported ready. At the end of that month the 
transports sailed, covered by Mowatt and a few inefficient men-of- 
war. In the middle of June the fleet came up Penobscot Bay, and 
after several days' general reconnoissance cast anchor off the little 
peninsula that ever since 1506 had been a recognized strategic 
centre round which an almost continuous struggle for supremacy 
had revolved.^ 

On the 26th the landing began, the troops looking about them 
" as frightened as a flock of sheep," ^ and John Nutting doubtless 
hastened to inspect his farm, woodland, and mill, now to be so 
handsomely protected against possible rebel molestation. Yet he 
could give little time to his private affairs just then, for the mil- 

1 Memorial to the Treasury, " Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

2 i. Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 381, 
393, etc. 

8 This ignorance was merely practical, for the magnificent series of charts 
by Des Barres had already been published. 

^ i. Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 415. 
See also 436, 458, etc., for many of the following details. 

^ Cf. G. F. Clark, " Military Operations at Castine," Worcester Society of 
Antiquity, Proceedings for 1889, 18 — a good general account of all the martial 
doings there, including a far earlier attack and repulse of the Massachusetts 
forces. 

* "Hutchings's Narrative." G. A. Wheeler, History of Castine, 322. 

« 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 79 

itary position must be made good at once. " The Provisions, Ar- 
tillery and Engineer Stores and the equipage of the troops, being 
landed on the Beach, must be carried to the Ground of the fort 
chiefly by the labor of the men against the ascent, there being only a 
Couple of small teams to Assist in it. The ground & all the Ave- 
nues to it, was to be examined, cleared from wood, and at the same 
time guarded. Materials were to be collected & prepared, And the 
defences, as well as every convenience of the fort, were to be 
reared." 1 The ruins of the French fort were apparently disre- 
garded, and an entirely new one was laid out. The official engineer 
was Captain Hartcup;^ but his plans proved defective and had 
to be altered, probably by the master-carpenter. There were other 
delays too, and it was July 2d before the lines were actually 
staked and work beo^un.^ The local inhabitants were divided in 
their attitude, as everywhere else. Some stoutly proclaimed their 
adherence to the United States of America, and when approached 
with the oath of allegiance made good their words by packing their 
scanty possessions and departing into the backwoods. Others to 
the number of a hundred showed their willingness by assisting 
to clear the ground round the fort, etc. A simple rectangular 
structure of logs and earthwork two hundred feet on a side* with 
corner bastions and a central blockhouse was laid out, a " shade " 
erected for the provisions, the powder "lodged in covered holes 
dug in the proposed glacis," a ditch cut across the isthmus, and the 
work pushed forward with a will. 

The expected attack was not long in coming. Of the consterna- 
tion and indignation of Massachusetts at this invasion of her ter- 
ritory, of the feverish fitting-out of the Penobscot Expedition, 
" by far the largest naval undertaking of the Revolution made by 
the Americans," there is no need to tell here in detail. Well 

1 Mowatt's "Relation," Magazine of History, Extra Number 11 (1910), 49. 

2 Elsewhere spelled, and doubtless pronounced, Hardcap. In like manner 
Mowatt becomes Moat ; and Calef masquerades as Calf. Rather oddly, Hart- 
cup's next assignment was to Landguard Fort. i. W. Porter, History of the 
Corps of Royal Engineers, 215. 

« McLean to Clinton, Camp at Majebigwaduce, 23 August, 1779. ii. His- 
torical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 1-1. 

* This was the inside measurement. That mentioned by Bdlard — 14 perches 
(= 231 feet) — was evidently the measurement outside the glacis. 



en^ 



80 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

known too is the story of the arrival of that formidable Yankee 
fleet off the little peninsula before the fort was half completed, the 
extraordinary indecision of the ensuing siege, and its shameful ter- 
U>iA4A4. fixvYnc'inination^ " Rarely has a more ignominious military operation been 
nafi. C&^QiU«)\ made by Americans. Had it been successful, it would not have been 
worth the effort it cost. Its object had no national significance ; 
^MlP^'** ^Y" it was an eccentric operation. Bad in conception, bad in prepara- 
VxA-o/uz^ AJ^- tion, bad in execution, it naturally ended in disaster and disgrace." ^ 
I ip ^-u?" ^ prodigious wreck of property, a dire eclipse of reputation, and 
^^ universal chagrin were the fruits of this expedition, in the pro- 

motion of which there had been such an exalted display of public 
spirit both by government and individuals." ^ Among the twenty 
transports destroyed was the whole trading fleet of the State. De- 
stroyed also were thirteen privateers, temporarily taken into the 
State service. Among these was the Vengeance, then in command 
of Captain Thomas ; and though the phrase " poetic justice " may 
not have been known to Mr. Nutting, the sight of his old captor 
blazing and crackling on the Penobscot flats must have been the 
sweetest moment of the campaign to her ex-prisoner.^ 

Concerned as we are with but one figure in the story, we must 
admit that the master-carpenter all this time seems to have lain 
extremely low. Indeed, for the only time in his history it is re- 
corded that his workmen did not " pay proper attention " to him. 
We get one glimpse of him accompanying a party sent for lumber 
up the Bagaduce River, perhaps to his own wood-lot.* But his 

1 C. O. Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution, 347, 352. 

'^ ii. J. Williamson, History of Maine, 476. In the opinion of well-informed 
British officers taking part in this affair the results strikingly justified many of 
Knox's theories. " The attack on Penobscot . . . was positively the severest 
blow received by the American Naval force during the War. The trade to 
Canada, which was intended, after the expected reduction of the Post of Pe- 
nobscot, to be intercepted by this very armament, went safe that Season : The 
New England Provinces did not for the remaining period of the contest recover 
the loss of Ships, and the Expence of fitting out the Expedition : Every thought 
of attempting Canada, & Nova Scotia, was thenceforth laid aside, and the trade 
& Transports from the Banks of Newfoundland along the Coast of Nova Scotia, 
&c : enjoyed unusual Security." Captain Henry Mowatt's " Relation," Maga- 
zine of History, Extra Number 11 (1910), 53. 

8'-E. S. Maclay, History of American Privateers, 118. 

•* Orderly Book of William Lawrence, Serjeant Royal Artillery, July 17, 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTINa 81 

peculiarly personal interest in tlie occupation and defence of the 
place had of course transpired, and when during the siege things 
seemed almost hopeless for His Majesty's forces ^ his situation was 
one demanding as much self-effacement as his nature was capable 
of. In a subsequent enumeration of his sufferings at Penobscot 
he mentions not only " enduring a Seige of Twenty Days, the 
fitagues of establishing a New Fort," but also "the part he had 
to act, and the reflexions thrown out against him by numbers of 
the officers when they were informed your Memorialist was the 
cause of their being carried there, under an idea that he had sold 
them to the Rebels, with the anxiety that must attend him, is more 
sensibly felt than expressed." 2 His attitude even partook of du- 
plicity. Admiral Collier wrote to General Clinton, August 24, 
1779, after the smoke of battle had somewhat cleared away, ex- 
pressing his strong disapprobation of establishing a post at this 
dreary rebellious place, and adding : " That fellow Nutting whom 
yr. Exc'y remembers at New York has just been with me on a 
message ; I asked him what coud possibly induce him to recom- 
mend the establishing a settlement in such a place, & what advan- 
tages might be expected from it ? He denied his having ever 
recommended the measure to Lord G. Germain, nor coud I learn 
from him what particular benefits woud accrue to us, by keeping 
possession of so infernal a spot." ^ 

Nevertheless, the value of Nutting's aid was officially and hand- 
somely recognized. McLean certified that he " served under my 

1779, and August 30. v. Bangor Historical Magazine, 146 et seq. A typical 
smack of the region is given in the disagreeable orders for September 17, that 
the commissary must thereafter " deliver out rice in lieu of pies." 

^ When the provincials effected their first landing on the peninsula, McLean 
•was so sure all was up that he stood by the flagstaff halliards himself, ready to 
strike his colors. " Hutchings's Narrative." G. A. Wheeler, History of Cas- 
tine, 32.3. Cf. a racy latter from E. Hazard, Jamaica Plain, 22 March, 1780. 
iv. Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 129. 

2 Memorial to the Treasury, " Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

* ii. Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 18. 
In his more self-assertive and characteristic moments he made no bones of 
claiming, in true carpenter's spelling, that " that Expedition was planed at 
his Recommendation," Testimony before the Commissioners, xiii. American 
Loyalists Transcripts, 298. Public Library, New York City. 



82 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

Command on the Expedition to Penobscot much to my satisfaction, 
on my taking post there. I appointed him Overseer of Works, 
which duty he performed with Zeal and fidelity to the King's ser- 
vice." ^ General Campbell, who was left in command of the place, 
" in consideration of his Attatchment to His Majesty's Government," 
made a " Gratuious Grant " to Mrs. Nutting of " a lot of Land to 
settle upon ... on the N. E. Side of y« Road Leading to Fort 
George, formerly the Property of Joseph Pirkins now in Rebellion." ^ 
As it was evident that he could not return to Cambridge, the Over- 
seer seems to have regarded this lot in the light of a homestead ; 
upon it he built a house which he valued at <£150. 

The success of this little invasion was quite extraordinary.^ It 
was so dwelt upon by the British, who had not overmuch in that 
line to offer, that it drew the satire of Horace Walpole on the " de- 
struction of a whole navy of walnut shells at a place as well known 
as Pharsalia called Penobscot,"* and sundry ingenious gentlemen 
came forward to share the honor of its authorship or to offer sug- 
gestions for improving on the situation.^ It was a bitter pill for 
the pride of the old Bay State, and the fiasco which had permitted 
it to continue was as a draught of wormwood to wash it down withal. 
Baffled and resourceless, the Massachusetts Council bethought them- 
selves of the great provincial panacea, and rushed blindly for aid 
to the one man who never lost his head. Washington in a stern 
letter, dated 17 April, 1780, pointed out the impossibility of any 
successful recapture of the place in the then desperate circum- 
stances of the whole military establishment. No troops could be 
spared except the militia, who, he cuttingly observed, if defeated, 

1 Certificate, Halifax, 16 May, 1780. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 
75, Public Record Office, London. 

2 Fort George, Penobscot, 21 June, 1781. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, 
Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

8 Cf. i. T. Jones, New York during the Revolution, 297. 

* Walpole to Countess of Ossory, 24 September, 1779, 

5 The domineering Col. Thomas Goldthwait hastened to New York to offer 
his services to Clinton in raising a regiment to defend the post. ii. Historical 
Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 20, 45. He wrote 
to Admiral Arbuthnot to the same effect, ii. H. M. C. R., Stopford-Sackville 
Papers, 149. Strange to say, he too owned extensive tracts in the vicinity. 
ix. Maine Historical Magaziiie, 23. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 83 

would " escape with difficulty, no doubt with disgrace." Nor, he 
reminded them, could such an attempt be made without a naval 
force, the total lack of which (thanks to themselves, he might have 
.added) was fast becoming a fatal defect on the American side.i 

Luckily for the republicans that indispensable factor was soon 
supplied by their French 'allies. During the spring of 1781, while 
the British fleet was busy in the Chesapeake and the French squad- 
ron idle at Newport, the Massachusetts men saw a golden oppor- 
tunity. Their proposals were favorably received by Destouches, 
who agreed to furnish five vessels, while Rochambeau was to sup- 
ply six hundred infantry, for an attack on Penobscot. Massachu- 
setts was to contribute a force of mihtia, but broke down; and 
Washington quietly advised Rochambeau to put no trust in this 
part of the agreement, but to proceed himself as speedily and 
secretly as possible. After much preparation Destouches decided 
that the naval risk was too great, and all was abandoned.^ 

Yet the instinct of Massachusetts was that of the she-bear robbed 
of her cub. The next summer Vaudreuil anchored his great fleet in 
Nantasket Roads, and Governor Hancock appealed to him to strike 
a coup de main at * that troublesome post " whither John Nutting 
had led the King's troops. The admiral seemed to approve, and 
the governor made some preparations on his own account. But the 
general of the allies disapproved, and Washington supported his 
view. Thus for the fourth time was Massachusetts foiled in her 
attempt to regain the conquered portion of her own territory.^ 

Still, regularly as the year came round, the thoughts of the Bay 
State turned to Penobscot. On 8 February, 1783, the Legislature 
addressed a letter to Washington on the same old subject, " a post 
too beneficial to them and too dangerous to the safety of this and 
the other states in the Union to suffer us to remain indifferent, pas- 
sive observers of their measures." With a doubtful regard for 
historical accuracy, the writers represented that since the defeat 
of the State expedition " our whole attention from that period to 
the present has been drawn from our own and fixed on the more 

1 Washington to President of Congress, 17 April, 1780. 

2 Washington to Rochambeau, 10 April, 1781. Cf. viii. J. Sparks, Writings 
of Washington, 10, note. 

* Washington to Hancock, 10 August, 1782. 



84 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

dangerous and distressed situation" of the more southern colo- 
nies, but " that as the enemy have now left the southern states, 
and as there is no particular object that seems to engage the atten- 
tion of the army," it would be a good time to send enough regi- 
ments " to dispossess the enemy or at least such a number as will 
confine them to their present possessions," as " we are apprehen- 
sive that they will in the spring take possession of the river 
Kennebeck." ^ 

Waehington patiently replied that if peace was soon declared 
there would be no need of further attention to Penobscot ; but if 
not, all efforts must be concentrated in a final attack on New York. 
And Massachusetts had to rest content with his suggestive state- 
ment that he should always be ready to concur in any " judicious " 
plan for retaking the eastern frontiers, " a territory whose utility 
is very deeply impressed upon me." ^ 

Amidst these wars and rumors of wars the garrison at Penobscot 
were constantly on the alert. They continued their defensive 
works until " the viperine nest," ^ as the patriots feelingly termed 
it, was reported to be " the most regularly constructed and best 
finished of any in America."* Frequent forays were made into 
the surrounding settlements, and not a few distinguished Sons of 
Liberty were temporarily deprived of their birthright and placed in 
durance vile at the central blockhouse.^ Several of these energetic 
gentry, however, contrived to penetrate Mr. Nutting's handiwork 
and depart in peace, if not with honor. Use also was made of the 
excellent harbor. The naval force was constantly changing. Ves- 
sels of war, transports, victuallers, privateers, and their prizes, 

1 Massachusetts Archives, 44 " Court Records," 304. 

2 Head Quarters, Newburgh, 22 Feb. 1783. Massachusetts Archives, 
"Letters, 1780-1788," 136. 

8 i. Maine Historical Society Collections and Proceedings, 2d Series, 397. 

* Washington to Vaudreuil, 10 August, 1782. 

6 Among them. General Cushing, of Pownalboro, General Wadsworth, of 
Thomaston, Daniel, brother of General Sullivan, etc. See Calef, Wheeler, 
Williamson, etc. It is an instructive example of the astounding distortion 
of the average American "history," to note the shrieks of protest against the 
inhumanities and outrages practised by the British — how Mowatt once threat- 
ened a rebellious native with his sword, etc. — while brutalities of the Colonials, 
like Wadsworth's summary hanging of a miserable half-witted tory guide, are 
passed over in silence, or condoned as unfortunate necessities of war. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 85 

made the scene busy and occasionally exciting ; as when the dash- 
ing Preble, in a night attack, cut out an English brig lying close to 
shore and escaped without a scratch,^ or Capt. George Little, by a 
daring stratagem, accomplished a similar feat.^ 

During this period many loyaHsts removed to this haven of ref- 
uge, and a sort of New Ireland de facto began to take shape. By 
the end of the war the settlement had grown from half a dozen 
huts to thirty-seven houses, some of two stories, with wharves, 
stores, etc., all the product of loyal hands.^ Another petition was 
sent to England asking to have the separate government estab- 
lished.* The authority of Massachusetts, despite her asseverations, 
was so thoroughly broken that " no place eastward of Penobscot 
was called upon for taxes or contributions after this [expedition] 
till the close of the war " ; although this exemption was carefully 
explained as due to tender consideration of the sufferings the in- 
habitants underwent from the British.^ 

In brief, then, futile as the original idea may have been in theory, 
in practice the occupation of Penobscot had turned out a surpris- 
ing success; Knox, with some show of reason, plumed himself 
upon "my plan" and its results.^ 

And how fared John Nutting, the humble causa causans of it 
all? During the winter and spring of 1779-80 he seems to have 
been pretty well occupied with the care of his own and his Majesty's 
property at Castine. His wife had joined him there soon after 
the siege, and there little Sophia Elizabeth was born, 23 Septem- 
ber, 1780.7 But farming and small garrison work were too tame 

1 J. Williamson, " British Occupation of Penobscot." i, Maine Historical 
Society Collections and Proceedings, 2d Series, 395, 

2 " Hutchings's Narrative." G. A. Wheeler, History of Castine, 327. i. C. 
Eaton, History of Thomaston, Maine, 134. Cf. payment of 24 May, 1781, " To 
Lieut. Col. Archibald Campbell of the 71st foot, for the lofTes fuftained by the 
George tranfport being taken by the rebels £39. 18. =," xxiv, J. Almon, Parlia- 
mentary Register, 639. From the same source we learn that £21 was consid- 
ered sufficient remuneration "to Capt. Alexander Campbell of the 74th foot 
for the cure of his thigh, which was broke at Penobfcott, in June, 1779." 

8 145 Massachusetts Archives, 377. 
* J. Calef, Siege of the Penobscot, 40. 
' ii. J. Williamson, History of Maine, 481, note. 
" ii. W. Knox, Extra-Official State Papers, 60. 
^ ' Nutting Papers. She married Michael B. Grant, 10 July, 1800, and bore 
him eight children ere his death in 1817. She herself died in 1862. 



86 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

for our budding strategist, and encouraged by the local sentiment 
he began to nurse the idea of repeating his former success with the 
ministry. General McLean also had theories of his own for the 
military dispositions along the Maine coast; between the two, 
if appearances are to be trusted, another scheme was hatched for 
the favorable consideration of Mr. Knox. At least, in the spring of 
1780, Nutting, " by the General's particular advice and recommen- 
dation. Embarked again for England," ^ where he soon announced 
that he had " laid a Plan before the Right Honourable Lord George 
Germain which if put into Execution he is clear would be of the 
greatest UtiUty to Government." ^ 

The details of that plan do not appear. We may have an echo 
of it in the insistence with which Germain the next winter urged 
upon Clinton the ministry's favorite scheme for the disposition of 
the throngs of Tories at New York : *' Many . . . are desirous of 
being settled in the country about Penobscot . . . and, as it is pro- 
posed to settle that country, and this appears a cheap method of 
disposing of these loyalists, it is wished you would encourage them 
to go there under the protection of the Associated Refugees, and 
assure them that a civil government will follow them in due time ; 
for I hope, in the course of the summer, the admiral and you will 
be able to spare a force sufficient to effect an establishment at 
Casco Bay, and reduce that country to the King's obedience." ^ 
At all events the imminence of this projected attack on Portland 
was sufficient to cause some very earnest preparations to be made 
by the inhabitants there.* 

It may have been only a coincidence, but soon after Nutting's 
arrival in London an astonishing impetus was given to the whole 
New Ireland scheme. Germain wrote to Knox, 7 August, 1780 : 
" I hope New Ireland continues to employ your thoughts : the 

1 Memorial to the Commissioners, heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. 
Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

2 Memorial to the Treasury, " Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist 
Series, Bundle 75, Public Record Office, London. 

« Whitehall, 7 March, 1781 (intercepted), viii. J. Sparks, Writings of Wash- 
ington, 521. 

* Campbell to Clinton, Ft. George, Penobscot, 15 March, 1781. ii. Histori- 
cal Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 258. Cf. ii. J. 
Williamson, History of Maine, 481, etc. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 87 

more I think of Oliver (Chief Juftice of Maffactufet's Bay), for 
governor, the more I Hke him. ... I wifh we might prepare fome 
plan for the conMeration of the Cabinet." * A hint was enough 
for Knox, and with suspicious speed the plan was produced. Four 
days later a full-blown constitution for the new province was a 
reality,^ and Germain wrote : " The King approves of the 'plan . . . 
likes Oliver for Governor, fo it may be offered him. He approves 
of Leonard for Chief Juftice." ^ Yet here a most provoking obstacle 
arose. We(Jderburn, the Attorney-General, in a pet, according to 
to the disgruntled Knox,* at seeing his legal rival, Lord Thur- 
low, raised to the peerage before himself,^ refused to sanction the 
proposition, declaring that no new province could be interposed 
between two old ones whose charters gave them g, coterminous 
boundary. €) 

Whether Nutting had much or little to do with all this, he 
reached England unfortunately "at the time of the Riots in Lon- 
don,® was detained contrary to his expectation, and received a 
peremptory order from Lord Townsend to proceed immediately to 
Landguard Fort. His Lordship being pleased to declare that Your 
Memorialist could not be spared out of the Kingdom at that time." "^ 
Work at Landguard was then in full swing, as the English coast 
towns were not only threatened by the Dutch and Spanish fleets 
but still sweating from the fear of that bogy-man of the sea, John 
P. Jones. 

Thus side-tracked among the East Anglian marshes, his finances 
being again very low, " having expended the whole of his pay, and 

1 W. Knox, Extra-OflBcial State Papers, ii. Appendix, 82. 

2 Discussed and compared in x. G. Bancroft, History of the United States, 
368. 

8 W. Knox, Extra-Official State Papers, ii. Appendix, 83. 

* Knox to Cooke, Ealing, 27 January, 1808. vi. Historical Manuscripts Com- 
mission Reports, Various, 228. 

^ This explanation seems a bit tenuous. The invidious promotion had been 
made over two years before, and Wedderburn was himself by this time safely 
within the charmed circle as Baron Loughborough. Still, there were doubtless 
wheels within wheels. 

6 The Gordon Riots began 2 June, 1780. 

' Memorial to the Commissioners, heard 29 December, 1785. Audit Office, 
Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

137 4- » 3^. 



88 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

being considerably more indebted than when he set out which he 
is wholly unable to pay although he has used the greatest Oecon- 
omy, not being able to return a Compliment of asking a Friend 
to Dinner," Nutting composed a memorial ^ to the Treasury Board, 
asking for reimbursement for £394 worth of expenses incurred 
since leaving Landguard in 1778, "with such other gratuity, as 
your Lordships shall think fit." This he followed up by a straight- 
forward letter 2 to Robinson, Secretary of the Treasury, who it 
appears had made a " kind promis to speak to My Lord North " in 
his behalf. Herein he begs for "one hundred or even seventy 
pounds " which " would set me free from that anxeiety of mind 
every honest man ought to have to pay his Just depts though in- 
cured for the service of Government." He refers for his " carec- 
ture, & services," to " the Rt. Hon'bl Lord Germain, or Mr. Knox ; 
to whom I have the honour to be well known." He was evidently 
determined that the family orthography should improve, for he 
adds a " P. P. (sic) the berer is my son who is at school in Lon- 
don, & shall wait on your honour when most convenient, for an 
answare." 

That "answare" was long in coming. The frightfully over- 
burdened treasury did not reach action on this appeal till a year 
and a half later. Then, after various wanderings in the official 
maze, it was returned to " Sir " Grey Cooper, the new Secretary of 
the Treasury, by the ever-friendly Knox, with the statement that 
" X300 is judged a proper compensation for Mr. Nutting's extra- 
ordinary expenses." ^ This sum the Treasury would consent' to 
pay only on receiving hack the X150 already allowed j^Nutting as an 
American sufferer, " to be applied again to the payment of Amer- 
ican sufferers. " * 

Ere this the ministry had changed and Nutting's old patrons were 
no longer in power. But he had already secured new ones — among 
them the Duke of Richmond, Master General of Ordnance. By that 
dignitary, soon after his exchequer had received the above addition, 

1 Endorsed: "Rec'd 13 Mar. 1781." Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 
75, Public Record Office, London. 

2 Landguard Fort, 5 October, 1780. Ibidem. 

8 Knox to Cooper, Whitehall, 14 March, 1782. Ibidem. 
* Endorsements on above memorial. 



1910.J ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 89 

and " as soon as the disturbances subsided," he was appointed engi- 
neer,! and was once again ordered out to New York, taking John 
Junior with him, " to follow such Directions as he might receive from 
His Excellency Sir Guy Carleton." 2 His arrival is chronicled in a 
letter from Carleton to his Grace dated 17 November, 1782: "Mr. 
Nutting and his son, whom Your Grace mentioned to me, are 
arrived here. I shall immediately employ the father according to 
his wish at Penobscot (sic), and as soon as an opportunity offers, 
provide for the son who I have in the meantime directed shall 
serve under the Chief Engineer, who will take care of him." « The 
commander-in-chief acted with a promptness that shows how much 
" influence " was behind the Cambridge man. A few days later 
his pecuniary cloud showed a further silver lining in the shape of 
a payment of another XlOO "for services to Government";* and 
on 1 December, young John was satisfactorily provided for, by an 
appointment as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.^ 

Nutting's wish to be employed at Penobscot was quite under- 
standable, but more serious matters were afoot, matters too in which 
he was specially qualified to assist. Carleton was facing the ques- 
tion of what to do with the loyalists. For years they had been 
concentrating on New York, which on their account was actually 
held by the British beyond the intended date of surrender.^ The 
humane general was doing all he could temporarily for the thousands 
of unfortunates, but the only possible solution of the problem of their 
final disposal was to send them to the province still loyal hke them- 

^ So at least he says in his memorial to the Commissioners, heard 29 Decem- 
ber, 1785. Probably a " practitioner engineer," a rank then just going out of 
use. Cf. i. W. Porter, History of the Royal Engineers, 202. The family tra- 
dition is that he was a captain in that corps, but his name is not found under 
that heading in the Army Lists and the title is probably confused with his son's. 
At all events, he seems to have soon quit the job. See post. 

2 Memorial above, Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record 
Office, London. 

* iii. Historical Manuscripts Commission, American Manuscripts, 226. 

4 22 November, 1782. Idem, 234. 

6 Army Lists. He at first appears as James Nutting, by an obvious error. 
24 March, 1791, he was promoted First Lieutenant, and 1 October, 1795, 
" Captain Lieutenant and Captain." He apparently sold out in 1797, 

« iii. R. Hildreth, History of the United States, 439. 



90 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

selves to the king.^ The movement to deport them to Nova Scotia 
began in the autumn of 1782. It soon reached proportions really 
alarming : during the ensuing twelvemonth nearly 30,000 souls were 
estimated to have arrived at Halifax, Annapolis, Port Roseway, St. 
John's, etc.2 The first requisite for these poor exiles was shelter. 
" They have applied to me," wrote Governor Parr, " to be provided 
with a Sufficiency of Boards for Erecting small houses to put them 
under Shelter after their arrival, as such a Provision is indispensably 
necefsary & out of their power to make." ^ In his next letter he 
speaks of the great want of working people. This scarcity of boards * 
and building material is mentioned in almost every one of Parr's 
letters home during 1783. " Another very Considerable Article 
of Expence My Lord will be the Lumber purchased from the Una- 
voidable Necefsity of Providing these people with some Kind of 
Shelter & Habitation; for although they might in some Degrjee 
have provided themselves with Materials from the Woods yet 
without some Allowance of Boards their Dwellings would be 
Wretched & Miserable, I cannot Ascertain the Expence already 
incurr'd on this Account, but from what is Known it amounts to 
about X3500."5 

Here, in short, was the same old field ripe again for John Nut- 
ting's best-known talents, and he very soon found himself ordered 
to report at Halifax once more.^ The conditions were curiously 
like those he had faced in 1776. There was the same uncertainty 

^ Little could these poor refugees foresee that by their very exile they were 
to perform a still incalculable service to their sovereign and his successors. It is 
now reckoned that nothing but the vast increase they gave to the population 
and prestige of Nova Scotia induced the ministry to consider retaining that 
despised remnant of the American possessions, — yet the nucleus of the present 
Dominion of Canada! E. P. Weaver, "Nova Scotia during the Revolution." 
X. American Historical Review, 71. 

^ Parr to North, Halifax, 20 November, 1783. 47 Provincial Archives, 
Halifax. 

8 Parr to Townshend, Halifax, 15 January, 1783. Ibid. 

* Some of the loyalists before leaving for Halifax " even tore down their 
houses to take the material to the wilderness for new homes." A. C. Flick, 
Loyalism in New York during the American Revolution, 188. 

6 Parr to North, Halifax, 21 October, 1783. 47 Provincial Archives, Halifax. 

* Memorial to the Commissioners, heard at Halifax, 29 December, 1785. 
Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 91 

and confusion, the same lack of supplies, the same wintry distress 
for the same class of true-hearted, tenderly-nurtured refugees, 
many of them fresh from the warm southern colonies. " It is a 
most unlucky Season for these unfortunate people to come to this 
Climate," remarks Parr in November. And a little later, " I can- 
not better describe the Wretched Situation of those people, than 
by inclosing your Lordship a list of those Just arrived in the Clin- 
ton Transport, destitute of almost everything : Chiefly Women & 
Children all still on board, as I have not yet been Able to find any 
Sort of place for them & the Cold Setting in Severe." ^ 

We must therefore again picture the master carpenter struggling 
to procure workmen and materials for the " indispensable " little 
huts into which the poor refugees were only too thankful to crowd 
themselves. Much of his work must have been of a supervisory 
and instructive sort — helping the new settlers to help themselves, 
explaining the mysteries of saw and hammer to the former aristo- 
crats of New York and Philadelphia, illustrating the theory of 
framing to the mob-harried ex-officials, broken professional men, 
and ruined merchant princes of that dolorous company. For there 
was now one great difference from the conditions of seven years be- 
fore. This time nothing lay beyond. Halifax was not a mere point 
of transshipment, but a terminus ; it was all too certain that there 
would and could be no return ; the new arrivals were to become 
permanent settlers to live and die in the Nova Scotia wilderness. 

For this reason the allotment of regular lands to the loyalists 
was another necessity, and a considerable force of surveyors pushed 
out into the forests and barrens of the back country, followed as 
fast as possible by the wretched army of grantees. Nutting must 
have made many a journey to the new settlements to assist in the 
house-building problems there. When it came to his own allot- 
ment the persuasive Yankee land-speculator drove his usual good 
bargain. Whether from the representations of his influential pa- 
trons at home, or from his own importance in the community, he ^ 

1 Parr to North, Halifax, 15 January, 1784, 47 Provincial Archives, Halifax, 

2 Warrant dated 7 September, 1783. 14 Crown Grants, .3. Crown Grants 
Office, Halifax. The exact location, close to the 1000 acres of " Commissary 
Roger Johnston," is shown on an ancient traced map in the office, marked 
" Avon River to Tinney Cape." It was a long narrow strip running back from 
the water, to give the advantages of botli upland and foreshore. 



92 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

received a large tract, 2,000 'acres, ^ of the rich soil on the south- 
ern shore of the beautiful Basin of Minas, near the present town of 
Newport, and conveniently close to Halifax itself, the provincial 
metropolis, " yielding & paying to His Majesty ... a free yearly 
quit rent of one farthing per Acre." 

He did not at once remove to this domain, however, still being 
busy with his government work. About this time, according to 
family traditions,^ he was constructing at Halifax the " Old Chain 
Battery " near the entrance of the Northwest Arm of the harbor. 
This, with the chain-boom which it commanded, stretching across 
the entrance to the Arm, was designed to protect the city from 
attack in the rear. Perhaps it was during the progress of the 
work that his daughter Mercy (named for her paternal grand- 
mother) was born on George's Island in the harbor, 3 July, 1785.^ 

These multifarious occupations, nevertheless, presented nothing 
either novel or exciting, and he had already begun to grow restive 
under his " daily and constant attendance on duty," and to make 
efforts towards bettering his official, or at least his financial posi- 
tion. To that end he had addressed Carleton in quaint yet illumi- 
nating phrases : " Penetrated with the most indelible Caractures for 
the past favours — I humbly beg that I may be pardoned for this 
intrusion also. . . . The Commander in Chief is not unacquainted 
with my expectations, in coming out to America with him nor like- 
wise with my disagreeable and unstable situation at this place . . . 
for a Virtuous and affectionate Wife, and four amible Chilldren,* 
who are entirely dependant on me for their subsistance, that have 
always had a sufficiency if not affulence till this time. ... I have 
spent upwards of eight years, the prime of my Life to support Gov- 
ernment I have served faithfully spilt my blood, and at this mo- 
ment feel the pain of my wounds which I received four years 
since, all which I have losst, and endured for the support of the 

1 The usual grant was 200 acres to a single man, 500 to a family, 1000 to a 
field officer in a loyalist regiment, etc. A. C. Flick, Loyalism in New York 
during the American Revolution, 190. 

2 W. F. Parker, Life of Daniel McNeill Parker, 12. 
8 Nutting Papers. She died young. 

* Elizabeth, James, and Susanna must therefore all have died during the 
wanderings and exposures of the war, leaving John, Mary No. 2, Mercy (who 
died the next year), and little Sophia Elizabeth. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 93 

Government of Great Britain. I humbly pray that the General in 
his great humanity penetration and goodness, would be pleased to 
take my Case into his consideration and appoint me survayor of 
Lumber for his Majesty's works in this province at 5/- per Day 
which is the same I had at Penobscott, in addition to my pay as 
overseer ... in lieu of being Engineer or any thing in my expec- 
tations preceedent, and indeed will prevent my being under the 
necessity of troubling my Friends in England, or your Excellency 
any further on Government account." ^ Evidently the friends in 
England were not to be disregarded, for in due course came the 
desired appointment,^ and " with a Salary of 10/- per Diem." ^ 

As a respectable official and a considerable landowner in Nova 
Scotia, John Nutting would now have had little to worry him, had 
not the fate of his Penobscot property been wavering in the bal- 
ance. The peace commissioners were at loggerheads over the east- 
ern boundary between the American and the British possessions. 
Should it be the Penobscot River or the St. Croix? Long and 
stubborn was the controversy, but we may almost fancy poor Nut- 
ting's bad luck in real estate as tipping the scale at last. Early in 
January,* 1784, the barracks and store-houses that had cost him so 
much labor were emptied and fired, and the King's troops " reluct- 
antly " — most reluctantly — abandoned Penobscot Fort, the last 

1 Nutting to Carleton, Halifax, 10 May, 1783. iv. Papers in the Royal In- 
stitution, 411. (New York Public Library Transcripts.) Precis in iv. Historical 
Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 76. 

2 <'from Colonel Morse of the Engineers . . . dated 23^ December 1783." 
xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 299. Public Library, New York City. 

8 xxviii. Idem, 198. 

* In spite of its romantic interest, the exact date seems still unknown. 
J. Williamson, "British Occupation of Penobscot." i. Maine Historical So- 
ciety Collections, 2d Series, 398 et seq. Carleton had ordered evacuation, with 
" no delay," more than three months before, and so notified Hancock, iv. His- 
torical Manuscripts Commission Reports, American Manuscripts, 378, 391. But 
like a spoiled child, Massachusetts, once her object was within her grasp, almost 
refused to take it. Local tradition asserts that the importance of the place in- 
duced the ministry to send orders to delay the evacuation till the American 
government had complied with the various articles of the treaty, but that 
these orders did not arrive till after the garrison had set sail, and nearly 
reached Halifax. W. Ballard, '« Castine, 1815." ii. Bangor Historical 
Magazine, 51. 



94 THE CAMBEIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

post they held on American soil, and New Ireland became one 
more province in the realm of might-have-been. According to Mr. 
Secretary Knox,^ the place never would have been evacuated at all, 
but would have remained to mark the seaward end of the British 
boundary-line, had not the jealousy of Wedderburne and the igno- 
rance of Shelburne allowed it slip out of their hands and fixed the 
American terminus at Eastport instead.^ Luckily for Massachu- 
setts she had John Adams on the board of treaty commissioners, 
and his insistent diplomacy achieved what five warlike attempts 
had failed in. 

The statesman mourned for a province in posse : the carpenter 
mourned for good acres in esse. His Cambridge property was al- 
ready hopelessly lost, and it needs but a modicum of imagination to 
picture his chagrin at beholding his cherished farm on the Baga- 
duce, his recently-acquired homestead by the fort, his cleared lands 
and his mill privileges, after all his schemes to secure them, slip 
thus from his grasp forever. No recourse remained but to put in 
vigorous claims for compensation before the commissioners ap- 
pointed to investigate and reward the services and sufferings of the 
loyalists. As usual, he lost little time, and on 15 January, 1784, 
made oath at Halifax to a moving memorial, accompanied by sun- 
dry affidavits and schedules regarding his property lost at Cam- 
bridge and Penobscot.^ This he entrusted to Samuel Sparhawk to 
present for him in London, " as it was not in the power of Mr. Nutting 
personally to attend your Hon'ble Board within the time limitted 
for receiving the claims." ^ Consideration of this was apparently 
deferred till the next year, when the Commissioners visited Hal- 
ifax to hear claimants on the spot. The indefatigable Nutting 
thereupon presented another memorial,^ backing it up with various 

1 Knox to Cooke. Ealing, 27 January, 1808. vi. Historical Manuscripts 
Commission Reports, Various, 227.' 

2 Most of the loyalists who were forced out of Penobscot removed to St. 
Andrews, opposite Eastport, thus continuing the border-line existence which 
they had already elected. 

» Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 

* Memorial of Sam'l Sparhawk " in behalf of John Nutting, March 25 
1784. Bedford Court, R'd Lyon Square." Ibid. 

6 Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record Office, London. 
Duplicated in xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 289. Public Library, New 
York City. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING 95 

documentary proofs and the personal testimony both of himself 
and of sundry other witnesses, including young Lieutenant John. 
The hearing ^ was on 29 December, 1785, and the decision ^ was made 
the same day. The Commissioners, apparently in view of the 
various payments already made to him by government, confined 
themselves to a consideration of his property losses. The Cam- 
bridge claims were disallowed, the house " appearing to have been 
•mortgaged to some of his Wife's Family & to be now in their pos- 
session." So was the claim for the " House built at Penobscot 
after that Post was occupied by the British Troops." So was the 
claim for " Furniture Lumber & Cattle lost at different places — 
there being no proof of Loss." In short, only X200 were awarded, 
for " 500 Acres on Penobscot River with Houses Improvements and 
^•^of a Saw Mill." Even that was "only conditional. Proof of Con- 
fiscation and Sale is required." This was subsequently furnished ; 
and after solemn affidavits from various members of the Walton fam- 
ily as to the Cambridge property,^ the claimant was " allowed on 
revision" an additional £100 for that, "after deducting mortge." * 
Unable therefore to capitalize his loyalty to any great extent, 
John Nutting seems to have settled down into a steady-going 
farmer of Newport, N. S. He probably carried out to the letter 
the various conditions on which all the crown grants had been 
made ; — " within three years from date hereof to clear and work 
three acres of or for every fifty acres in the tract hereby granted 
... or clear and drain three acres of swampy or sunken ground, 
or drain three acres of marsh, ... or put or keep on his said lands 
three Neat Cattle " or " to erect on some part of his said Lands One 
dwelling house to Contain twenty feet in length by sixteen feet in 

1 Fully reported in xiii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 297 et seq. Public 
Library, New York City. The witnesses besides Nutting plre et fils, were 
Samuel Pool and Nathaniel Bust [? Rust], formerly of Cambridge, and Josiah 
Henny, of Penobscot. For the latter cf. G. A. Wheeler, History of Castine, 201. 

2 xxviii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 197. Public Library, New York 
City. 

8 Affidavits of John "Walton of Cambridge and Benjamin Walton of Reading, 
29 October, 1788. Audit Office, Loyalist Series, Bundle 51, Public Record 
Office, London. 

* 12 December, 1788. xxviii. American Loyalists Transcripts, 197. Public 
Library, New York City. A revision after such an interval certainly suggests 
considerable powers of " pull " or persuasion. 



96 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

breadth." He was a man of importance in the community, too, for 
his influence is unmistakable in the naming of the next town to 
Newport, perpetuating his wife's family name of Walton. His last 
child, a son of his old age, was born 12 September, 1787, and 
named from his two grandfathers James Walton.^ 

So passed the afternoon of life. But was that active and in- 
genious spirit content in the improvement of a back-country farm 
and the routine duties of a surveyor of lumber ? He had taken re- 
sponsible part in many a stirring scene, in militia musters, in 
famous sieges, in English fort and Spanish prison, in concentration 
camps, in councils of the state, in fateful despatch-bearing. He 
had been faithful to his king, even unto banishment and double 
confiscation. Did he not long to play the man again ? When his 
old wounds burned and stung in the foggy autumn nights, did not 
his thoughts turn back to his early frontier campaigns, to his " fall 
trainings " in Cambridge, to his expedition with Colonel Small, to 
his fight with the privateer ? When the surf from Blomidon boomed 
on his beach, did he not hear again in fancy the guns of the Ven- 
geance, or the 24's of Collier at Castine, or the cannonade from 
Copp's Hill ? Did he not sometimes yearn as he passed among the 
farmer folk for his old neighbors in cultured and beautiful Cam- 
bridge, or his polished friends and patrons in glittering London? 
If we read the man aright, there can be but one answer. 

We know, moreover, that to the end his old land-hunger and 
wanderlust were strong upon him, for he was constantly buying, 
selling, and mortgaging lots,^ extending his operations as far as 
Cape Breton and its neighborhood. But his financial ill-luck, like 
the villain of the melodrama, still pursued him. When he died, 
intestate, late in 1800, although he was described as "gentleman," 
and as possessing " two lots of 500 acres each in Newport, being 
part of lands commonly called Mantular Lands" and "a 200 acre 
lot of Land in the County of Sidney No. 9, and a Town Lot in Man- 

1 Married Mary Elizabeth MacLeau, 10 July, 1813, and had six children. 
Died 7 July, 1870, at Halifax. Nutting Papers. Stone in Camp Hill Cemetery 
there. He rose to eminence in the law, was clerk of the crown in the supreme 
court of the province, and at his death was senior member of the Nova Scotia 
Bar. He had a 500-acre grant in Newport, close to his father's. 

2 His numerous local deals may be traced iu "Windsor (Nova Scotia) Deeds, 
passim. 



1910.] ADVENTURES OF JOHN NUTTING • 97 

.Chester, No. 3 Letter M," — yet his estate was found insolvent, and 
a general sale was made of his property. The inventory included 
« 7 cows, 1 yoak of oxen, 2 yoak of stears, 2 Heighfors," and other 
livestock, " 1 boat," a reminder of his seafaring days, and a curious 
list of his tools : " 3 axes, 1 Handsaw, 1 Crosscut saw, 1 Two feet 
rule, 2 augers, 2 chissels, 1 foot adds, 1 Tray adds, 2 grindstones, 
1 Crow Barr, 1 Jack Plain, 1 Iron square, 1 draw knife, 3 files, 
1 pinchers, 1 Do. Hammer." Only the merest necessities of life 
were exempted and "left m the Hands of the Wido Mary Nutting 
& her children." ^ 

While his relict thus sufPered the penalty of his characteristic 
pecuniary misfortunes, she luckily reaped the benefit of his equally 
characteristic friendships with the great and influential. The Duke 
of Kent, Queen Victoria's father, then just quitting the post of 
commander-in-chief in Nova Scotia, " in consideration of her hus- 
band's services to the Crown, and his heavy losses at Cambridge 
by confiscation, . . . procured for the widow a special pension 
from the Crown." ^ Upon this subsidy, aided perhaps by her chil- 
dren's contributions, she managed to eke out an existence, possibly 
precarious but certainly protracted. She died about 1831, at 
" Loyal Hill." 3 

Such is the history, so far as gathered, of a Cambridge man born 
and bred, interesting not only for his all too uncommon type of 
personality among his loyalist neighbors, but for the curious spec- 
ulations arising from his share in the historical events in which he 
played a part. If, for example, the strategists of Great Britain, 
uninfluenced by his sohcitude for his eligible farm, had established 
the post in Maine at some other point than Penobscot — a point 
on which the attack of the Provincials might have been success- 
ful, — if the only organized naval force of the colonies, instead of 
disappearing utterly, had returned, encouraged by victoiy, to take, 
under the masterly strategy of Washington, a definite and co- 
ordinated part in the current and subsequent campaigns of the Rev- 
olution, — who can say how much the struggle would have been 

* Hants Probate Records at Windsor, Nova Scotia. His son-in-law, Daniel 
McNeil, was appointed administrator, 21 November, 1800. 

2 W. F. Parker. Life of Daniel McNeill Parker, 12. 

* Nutting Papers. 



98 * THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Oct. 

altered and shortened ? What would have been the effect on the 
story of American privateering ? Again, if that post had been to 
the eastward of Penobscot, even had the result of the expedition 
been the same as it was, where might the Canadian boundary 
now be fixed? What chances for an actual New Ireland of 
to-day ? 

And the Muse of History (doubtless a polyglot dame) smiles 
inscrutably and replies, Quien sale? 



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